AQUARIUS(January 20 - February 18) You'll be angry if those you live with aren't pulling their weight. You can come into money; however, perhaps not under the best circumstances. You can make changes to your living quarters, but not everyone will be pleased with your efforts.

CAPRICORN(December 22 - January 19) Social activities that involve the whole family will be enjoyable. Don't let your emotions interfere with moneymaking deals. Your talent will be recognized.

CANCER(June 21 - July 22) Be careful while traveling. Have a heart-to-heart talk with family and find out what the problems are. If possible, rely on coworkers to back your objectives, and talk to superiors in order to get approval.

LEO(July 23 - August 22) Chances are you could get stuck with a colleague's job unexpectedly. The personal problems you may be having are interfering with your productivity. Put all your energy into moneymaking ventures.

PISCES(February 19 - March 20) You can ask for favors or run your ideas by those who will be able to support your objectives. You will enjoy getting together with friends. You will have to be careful not to fall into traps set by jealous colleagues.

GEMINI(May 21 - June 20) You will be able to borrow money in order to invest. You would be best to work late in order to avoid such disharmony. You will want to take off and have some recreation.

TAURUS(April 20 - May 20) You may feel that someone at work is holding you back. You can make a serious attempt at quitting those bad habits that you've picked up over the years. Promotions will be yours if you have acted professionally in times of crisis.

SAGITTARIUS(November 22 - December 21) If you can't trust someone, question the connection. Your ability to communicate with ease will win the hearts of those you are in touch with today. You can offer your help to others but back off if they appear to be offended by your persistence.

SCORPIO(October 23 - November 21) You should sign up for creative courses. Concentrate on your work. Jealous coworkers may try to sabotage your attempts to get ahead. Take care of the needs or responsibilities of elders.

LIBRA(September 23 - October 22) You will gain new friends if you get involved in environmental issues. Do something special for them. Do not jump to conclusions concerning your romantic partner.

VIRGO(August 23 - September 22) Business trips will be more productive than trying to fight the red tape facing you. Things are looking good for you, so open your eyes and get to it. Changes in your residence may be financially favorable.

ARIES(March 21 - April 19)Abrupt changes in your home may send you for a loop. Include friends and family members in your redecorating plans. Losses are likely if you aren't careful where you leave your valuables.

~Invisibility Spell? Huh?

Fantasy spells. We see them all around us. Books, movies, websites, they are literally all over the place nowadays. Flying spells, invisibility spells, transformation spells. People have always been fascinated with the impossible, the unknown, the "supernatural" ( I really do not like this term but that is for an other post).

But wait a second. Is this whole "thing" a new concept?

So... should we just um... blame the Holywood and the movies and all that or is it something that's not new at all? Actually, no, it is not a new concept at all.

Today I am coming to you with a new papyrus, well, not that new but yeah you get the idea. Today we are going to look into the papyrus PGM1(232-262) , which has to do with an invisibility spell.

Now, now don't get all excited, it is not real.

The papyrus is, but it goes without saying that the spell is not. Let's take a deep breath and go back, back in time. Fourth or probably fifth century AC. Yes, AC. This papyrus is actually one of the "contemporary" papyri. Most papyri, at least the ones we have today in our hands, come from the 3rd century BCE (thank Egypt!). Let's take a look at it.

This time, I really want us to delve deeper into this very subject so I want us to actually see the papyrus. I want us to see what it looked or rather looks like, how it was written. I want us to examine the sigils on it, etc. Unfortunately, I could not find a picture of the papyrus online, so I uploaded my own. Please, if you wish, copy and paste this link on to your browser and let's take a careful look at it together.

Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/j9u6xgj

Right. So what do we see here? What do *YOU* see?

It looks like... a page. And it actually is. OK, so we have a page in front of us with some... scribbles. On this papyrus, the writing is actually very sloppy. It's readable, but if you've ever studied ancient greek, it is definitely going to give you a headache and we don't want that. Alright, so a page, some... scribbles and a bunch of sigils or drawings on the bottom. This page, or rather this papyrus does not include only one spell, the one we are going to talk about briefly, but three. The first spell on the top of the papyrus is an invisibility spell. The second one is a spell to improve your memory (sorry guys but it's not a legit spell) and the third one is an invocation, I believe. Right, so let's see what this spell is all about and talk about this weird papyrus with these... odd spells.

Here I translate:

Tested disappearance. Great trick. Take an ape's eye or take an eye from someone dead who died violently and then grab some rose and rub those ingredients together along with some [...] oil. While you are doing this, recite this prayer: Rise up Demon from underneath, whatever I command you to do, I [you add your name here] , you shall obey me. Therefore, if you want to become invisible, annoint your forehead with the product [/result] of your ingredients after you've mixed them together and you shall be invisible for as long as you wish. However, if you want to be visible again, moving from the West towards the East, recite this phrase and you will be visible again. And the phrase is. Voces Magicae [Magical words: these are words the majority of which are incomprehensible to us today] Make me [name] visible to all humans, today, immediately, fast, it works very well.]

Some of you are probably thinking. What did I just read?

Or...

is this REALLy a magic spell coming from an ancient papyrus?!

Believe it or not, yes it is.

Now before you go around looking for apes or dead people who passed away in a violent way, let me stop you right there. Not all people who practice magic today practice the say way. Not all people who practice magic today have the same goals, or ethics, or morals.

What makes you think that that was different in the past? Of course there were charlatans in the past, as well. Of course there were people who deceived others, of course there were frauds, and the spell you just read is proof of that.

But where did this weird spell really come from?

You may be wondering. It is believed that it came from a spellbook, which is why there are 3 spells listed on this page (of the papyrus). Quite a few people who practiced magic back then (some of them were the 'real' deal if I may say so, some though were pretty much... frauds) would copy spells from different spellbooks that used to go around back then. What leads us to this conclusion? We have quite a few papyri today of such spells, and processes, rituals, etc that are almost identical to one another. There may be some slight changes but for the most part the spells are almost identical.

Now, the story probably went like this.

You would go to this particular magician to ask for a spell. The magician" would sell this spell to you and give you proper instructions on how to cast it properly but if you failed, that was your doing, that was your mistake. So, in our case, the spell is fake, the papyrus is real but the spell on it of -course- does not work.

To sum up, today we talked about a greek magical papyrus (PGMI 232-262) which contains three spells. We focused on the first spell right on the top of it which is an invisibility spell. The spell does not work and believe it or not... "fake" spells are not really a new concept at all -- probably the exact opposite judging from what we saw today.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post. :)

Sources:

1) University Notes: Papyrology I (141EE), 2014, DMT

2) Papyrology II, (EEAEF152), DMT

3) Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World.

4) The papyrus you saw on this post is: PGM1 (232-262) from Papyri Grecae Magicae (PGM).

Nice post.. I didn't actually know all thse fantasy concepts come from old times... But now I'm preety sure they did. Also, many subjects from ancient religions, ancient traditions or mythology and so on..are fake. For example Bible; Bible has many lies in it and is messed up... Of course fake subjects and words will exist in other religions too...

So, indeed, because it's written on an ancient papyrous it doesn't mean it's neccesarily true.

I'd like to add also, that these invisibility spells-if working of course, don't work like Hollywood movies invisibility spells... They work in the way of others ignoring you. They are aware of your precense and you're preeth much seen, but they tend to completely ignore you like you're not there. The degree they tend to ignore you depends on the power of the spell. Lastly, invisibility spells could be placed at "illusion spells" category.

Looking at some more modern folk tales, we see the same stuff. A good example is the brutal sacrifice of a cat for their invisible bone, or eating their heart to become bullet proof. I think what happens is just a story. Probably someone who doesn't practice magic told the tale, and later, researchers decided to record it. Remember Harry M. Hyatt? Witch trial documents? It's what comes to mind to me.

Hmm, upon looking into the PGM, I found something much like the cat bone lore in PGM III (591-609). Simi liar in the same vein of horribly killing the cat yourself. While not the same goal, it does share the same purpose with a folk charm I saw in Gumbo Ya-Ya. But, instead of killing the cat yourself, you put the name of the target in the mouth of a cat already dead, but not decaying. I love how some of the same ways of thinking continue through out time.